


Dreaming on the Train Tracks

by wanderin



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I don't know how else to tag, M/M, Post-Movie, alternative universe, but not right away so yes angst, but still canon in some ways, except that they don't, parallel worlds, they both die, very loosely based on Inception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 04:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11821002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderin/pseuds/wanderin
Summary: An AU where every time you die, you wake up in a parallel world. You cannot know whether it is a dream or not; you don't even always know who you are. Eggsy is trying to find Harry - or at least find the world he consideres real.





	Dreaming on the Train Tracks

**Author's Note:**

> This work was inspired by the Inception movie. The universe has no strict rules so it is not really an Inception AU, more like just an alternative world.  
> I'm sorry for all the possible mistakes because this is my first work in English and I'm not a native speaker. Any help is very much appreciated.  
> Also, I'm goethe-sei-dank on tumblr. Find me there, too, if you like.  
> Enjoy!

He is waiting for a train. A train that will take him far away. He knows where he hopes where this train will take him but he doesn’t know for sure. He believes it doesn’t matter; he is wrong. 

The lights go dim. The train rushes roaring through the darkness. He screams. He wakes up. 

Eggsy wakes up and checks his totem; it’s a small medal on a thin chain. He can’t recognise the numbers on the other side. He cries for several hours.

It’s September, 29 and he knocks at the door of a tailor-shop on Saville Row.

“Huntsman”, the name on the window says. Eggsy doesn’t know why he is doing that. He’s never been here before. 

He looks over the shelves and it doesn’t feel right. He can’t tell exactly – what – it just doesn’t. He’s a wearing a suit that fits almost perfectly and something is incredibly wrong with him. With this. 

“Can I help you, sir?” the man at the reception says. He isn’t old or young, or anything. He is an empty space. 

“Oxfords, not brogues?” Eggsy tries. The man is confused and can’t find right words to answer. Eggsy smiles. He doesn’t know where these words come from; he is, too, very much confused, to be honest. 

“Nevermind.” 

He looks at his left wrist and for somewhat reason touches the face of his watch. It’s 1:30. Eggsy leaves. 

The phone in his pocket beeps and Eggsy checks it. A message from a university friend. A missed call from his mother. A picture of dad and his little sister as a lockscreen. He’s a student in this one, it seems. _Just_ a student. He isn’t exactly disappointed but it’s not even fun anymore. Even with seeing his family as a whole. It looks happy but it is utterly fake, it happens in every two of five, he has counted. 

He takes a cab to the countryside, then walks for almost two hours. A sudden rain hits him on his way; he doesn’t care. There’s a railway station and he knows exactly when the next train will come. He has got maybe ten minutes to think it over; this is the first time he has realised it’s not _that_ in less than a day. 

The train takes him far away. Eggsy remembers – he finally does – everything and closes his eyes, and smiles. They will be together, or maybe they won’t. 

He wakes up to the sunlight and heat and a concerned male voice telling him to open his eyes. It’s hot, it’s crowdy; it’s a railway station. 

“Are you alright?” the man asks. Eggsy looks at him: a sharp suit, a pair of glasses, a ridiculous black umbrella on a summer day. Very handsome, late thirties or early forties. “You passed out because of the sun, I guess. Sorry for the possible inconvenience. I’m Harry.” 

What inconvenience, Eggsy wants to ask and then he feels that his t-shirt is wet, and sees an empty bottle on the ground next to him. 

“That’s okay”, he says instead, “thank you. Name’s Eggsy. Nice suit.” 

Harry smiles and it’s something that is so familiar but Eggsy cannot remember what. It doesn’t really matter. There are more important things to do, since they both go to London. 

“A bespoke suit always fits”, Harry tells him months later as Eggsy tries his first one on. Harry is a tailor, no wonder he can get his lover a suit. That’s when the first thought creeps into his mind: he doesn’t fit here, something is wrong. He must leave. 

Mark sees them as he walks out of his study; Harry looks pleased and relaxed, Eggsy looks better than ever. He thinks a pair of glasses would be just perfect but there’s no reason for it, Eggsy’s eyes are good. Harry’s are not, and yet he prefers contact lenses. 

“Looking good, Eggsy”, Mark says and winks at them. 

Feeling good, _Merlin_ , is Eggsy’s only thought. He pushes it away and answers, “Thank you.” 

Harry’s smiling face and an unending guilt is all he can see or feel before the sound of the wheels is closer and closer and finally above his head. He only feels relief then. 

And wakes up. 

The room is light and spacious and smells of citrus. He’s at Kingsman Medical, he’s safe. He’s at home. 

“Thank God”, Harry breathes out as soon as he opens his eyes. “You gave us all quite a night, Lancelot. I’m going to call Merlin right now.” 

It is – good. More than just good, actually, it’s absolutely perfect. Like, he’s a successful agent, and Harry is right here. They fight side by side, they spend weekends together. Harry takes him to museums and theatres, and Eggsy is desperately in love – it’s simple. All he could ever dream of and a little bit more: life full of adrenaline, sweet wine and beautiful weaponry. 

“You’re only doing it as a distraction don’t you”, Eggsy laughs quietly as Harry presses small kisses onto his neck and him – into the wall. They’re on mission, almost blew up their covers and Merlin’s going to bloody kill them both. Eggsy loves it all. 

“Of course not.” 

The mark pays no attention to them and they manage to steal the information, though it’s not about it anymore. It’s about lingering touches and meaningful looks. It’s what they have been building for all this time and Eggsy can’t be happier. 

“I can hardly believe it is real”, Harry confesses one night as they lie silently in bed. “Back then, while your training period, I couldn’t let myself dream of something as beautiful as this. I am sorry for the thoughts I had all those days ago. I thought you would never shoot the dog for work, even as good as this one, and hated myself for being so unsure in you. I’m glad I was wrong.” 

“I am, too”, Eggsy replies automatically, trying his best not to think about shooting JB, about how wrong it is – again, but it’s too late. It’s the matter of time now, he knows. All these happy hours were not real. And it hurts just as much. 

He cries this time, not because he is afraid to die and wake up somewhere else, but because it has _almost_ worked out. No use avoiding his real self, Eggsy thinks, he will always destroy it anyway. He takes another a train to nowhere. Maybe he will have his luck next time. 

Eggsy wakes up in a comfortable bed. He’s wearing some amazingly soft pajamas, the window is opened and a ray of light is creeping into the room through the thin curtains. It must still be quite early, Eggsy thinks, that’s why he feels so relaxed and lazy. He stands up, takes a shower, brushes his teeth and, without even changing into normal clothes, goes into the kitchen. 

There’s his part of breakfast on the table, pancakes with jam and coffee. Harry has already left for work, as it seems, and Eggsy has nowhere to go today. It doesn’t matter; he can wait. 

Eggsy discovers everything like it’s all new. He thinks there should be secret drawers and boxes but there are none, it feels strange. He goes to where he thinks is Harry’s study and it looks quite the contrary to what he has expected. Nothing special, nothing… of him. 

The day is dull, boring, full of empty useless expectations. He hopes it will be better when Harry returns home but when he really does, it isn’t _at all_. 

“Evening, love”, Eggsy smiles at him but Harry says nothing. He looks tired, but instead of being happy to see Eggsy he is now… annoyed? “I’ve made dinner.” 

“That’s good”, he replies dryly in a couple of moments. “Thank you. Now, can I have a moment alone?” 

Eggsy doesn’t know what’s wrong, or what he has done to deserve it, and all he wants is to cry it out – but he can’t. The words and tears are stuck inside him and everything is just… senseless. They eat silently and it’s terrible. Then they finally talk. 

“Is something wrong, Harry? Is something wrong with _us_?” he asks when it becomes too much to handle. He knows perfectly well where this is going and yet something inside him dares to hope. 

“Eggsy… I think we have already discussed it”, Harry says with a visible effort. “There’s no… us. What – no, please, don’t. I care about you, you know I do. Besides, I still owe your father a debt I will never be able to repay. I would do anything in my power to protect you, to give you what you need, anything. But I can’t love you. And you most certainly don’t love me, too, you know? You will realise it soon, I am sure. It’s normal, it’s… admiration. Trust. Friendship. You will meet someone really special and it will be okay. You’re too young to know what you feel and want from a relationship.” 

He adds something about being his friend no matter what but Eggsy doesn’t listen to him anymore. He understands everything now: waking up alone, having breakfast alone, feeling lonely all day. He falls asleep hugging a pillow. It doesn’t hurt because it’s fake (he is used to it being fake, thank you) but it does because it looks like his greatest fear and he doesn’t know what he’s going to do if once he manages to find real Harry, _his_ Harry, this will appear to be true. No treating him like an equal. No love. Nothing. 

He meets the next morning in the underground. The only thing he can hope for is never remembering what has happened here. Never again. 

Eggsy wakes up. He wakes up more often than goes to sleep, it doesn’t even feel strange anymore. He can’t tell what this is for – he doesn’t believe in what he’s doing now – but it’s a habit. He will go mad if he stops. Indeed, he will. He is halfway there already. 

The numbers on his medal are still blurred. He sighs and takes JB for a walk. Better than sitting all day at home, anyway. And he is, to be honest, interested In what this one will turn out to be. 

That’s how it happens this time: the dogs. They’re in the park and Eggsy lets JB run around a little bit, if running is a suitable word for a pug, but what he doesn’t expect at all is something quick, soft and excitedly barking hitting him from behind. Eggsy turns around; there’s a small brown terrier in the grass, lovely and with clever look in his little black eyes. Eggsy’s heart melts immediately. 

He misses the moment when the dog’s owner appears from somewhere and says in slightly laughing, beautiful voice, “Stop attacking innocent people, Mr. Pickles, be a gentleman.” 

Eggsy looks at him and knows he’s already falling, but out loud he says only, “Mr. Pickles, is it? Who the fuck names their dog Mr. Pickles?” 

It appears that Harry Hart does. He’s forty-five and a businessman, runs an expensive tailor-shop on Saville Row, and loves ridiculous little dogs, so he is equally charmed by Eggsy and JB. It is all wonderful, a magnificent universe where they share a lunch and meet at the same park every day, and Harry takes him to dinner and then home. The only problem is that Eggsy knows this time, right from the beginning, that everything is just a sweet and beautiful dream. He doesn’t want to wake up but it can’t, it mustn’t last forever – or he will never have a chance to find his Harry, or at least his reality again. As good as dreams sometimes are they must stay as dreams. 

Harry goes to the station with him. Eggsy’s got a two-way ticket. He won’t be using it. 

“I promise I’ll be in London soon”, he lies. He is not going to come back at all. “Take care of JB, okay?” 

Harry smiles and kisses him on the forehead – gentle and caring – and it’s so much more in that, Eggsy knows. And in his words, too. They part and Eggsy tries his best not to think about all those happy moments they had together; they were perfect but nothing he hadn’t expected. Nothing special. Nothing Harry would do to surprise him – if he ever would, of course. 

He finds himself lying on the train tracks once again, somewhere near a small village and a river, and can’t find enough strength to feel sorry. There’s a sound of train coming, yet quite far, but this time, it makes Eggsy smile. If he can’t have it for real he will get as many illusions as he can. 

“...Merlin, calm down, that’s alright. He’s just overreacted”, is the first thing Eggsy hears, distantly, as he slowly returns to the reality. He doesn’t have to open his eyes to know it’s Harry who is saying this. “My poor Eggsy… If I only knew. I’m so sorry. But it’s going to be okay now.” 

He slowly opens his eyes to find himself curled up in Harry’s arms and Merlin looking worriedly at them both. Harry’s stroking his hair and staring at him with pure love and adoration but all Eggsy can feel is… tiredness. No tenderness inside his heart or anything close, and it almost drives him into panic. Maybe it is the aftermath, he thinks. Maybe it’s alright. 

Harry takes him home, quite literally since he carries him to the cab and then inside the house. Eggsy feels, well, he feels good but nothing more. Not even when Harry holds his hands or cups his face and looks into his eyes to say, “I’m here, darling. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” 

“I know”, Eggsy says simply and the guilt can eat him alive, as it seems, when Harry kisses him – softly, slowly, tenderly, everything he could ever imagine – and he still doesn’t feel anything. But Harry is, as always, caring and attentive and wonderful, he says that Eggsy must be tired and runs him a bath and wraps him in his own bathrobe and lets him fall asleep in his arms. 

The morning changes nothing. Eggsy is shocked and hurt, it is so, so painful because this Harry _must_ be real, he’s – everything. They watch _My Fair Lady_ and drink wine with food from goddamn McDonald’s, they order new suits – an orange one for Eggsy, un-fucking-believable; Harry lets him everything. it’s perfect. Harry loves him, he can feel it in every word and touch and kiss. And yet he doesn’t feel anything in return. 

Eggsy really thinks he’s tired. He considers doing what he always does – lying on the train tracks and waiting for all the problems to magically disappear – but he doesn’t think it will work out. So he waits, feeling guilty and hurt, until he realises everything is real or at least believes it for a moment. Because Harry is so, so much like what he should be. 

It needs time, and it takes time. It’s hard to make yourself believe that you can now have what you think you have lost forever. Slowly, very slowly he starts feeling the tastes and the touches, he understands the humor and can enjoy simple things again. 

“It’s alright, you went through what no one of us had to go”, Harry once says to him. “Killing the world’s political elite with a couple of words is not funny at all, even it wasn’t you who pressed the button. I just want you to know, I’ve made far worse things in my life and yet here I am. It’s not easy to live with them but it is possible.” 

And this time, Eggsy thinks, he might be referring to Kentucky, and though it is the most terrible moment of his entire life he can’t be happier to hear about it. This can be real. _This is real._

“I wish you hadn’t seen all that”, Harry adds bitterly and Eggsy knows, he knows it is that. 

“It’s in the past now, isn’t it?” he offers. “Just history.” 

Harry pulls him into a hug and breathes out, smiling, “Yes, you’re right. Just history.” 

He needs one more mission in Europe to realise he remembers what it is to miss somebody, or something, and it’s amazing. He is, once again, happy to step on the board of the Kingsman plane and go home for there are so many important things he has to do. He’s got his entire life for it. It will be worth it. He returns to London full of idealistic dreams and expectations, just like before. And then everything goes to hell. 

Eggsy watches it with his own eyes and can’t be mistaken, it’s an explosion so strong that the ground shakes far around it. He watches Kingsman burning down in flames and cannot even say goodbye to Roxy or Merlin, let alone save them. He watches the same happening to the shop. 

He comes home to Harry feeling alive again but there’s no home and no Harry anymore. It hurts more than it ever has in his life. He loses him for the second time in his life, why does it have to be so fucking cruel? 

Eggsy doesn’t care for anything since then. Neither for who has done this or how he should fix it, nor for the Statesman who ask him immediately to come to America and offer their help. It all doesn’t matter. It never will. He doesn’t know what will happen to him now but it’s enough, he’s tired of pain and sorrow and disappointment and hurting himself. This is going to be his last train and whatever comes next will be his Neverland. 

He silently hopes to never wake up. Of course he does. 

It’s strange this time. He remembers everything, all he has gone through during these months of loneliness, stupid hope and desperation. He feels quite comfortable though, not at the border point of hysteria or willing to put himself under the train’s wheels immediately. It’s weird but it’s not bad at all. 

Eggsy slowly looks around. It’s weird, too, the place he finds himself at, the sofa in the restroom of the Kingsman shop. He knows it pretty well. It’s almost like it used to be in his reality but less official and more… domestic? He’s got a blanket put carefully over him, a reminder of someone’s presence, and oh how much he wants it to be the one and only person in the world. 

Eggsy finds it out soon after; he bumps into Harry right in the doorway, and he looks just as surprised and relieved as Eggsy does, and they both forget where and why they were going. 

This is perhaps his last chance, Eggsy realises, why is he so calm right now, why does it feel right even though he knows perfectly well it should feel wrong because it’s all fake? He doesn’t know what to say, for the first time they meet in all these versions of the same reality, because, unlike what it was like before, Eggsy remembers all of them and knows nothing about this one. 

“Eggsy…” Harry says finally as if he couldn’t find correct words. “You don’t seem well. Do you want me to get you a cab?” 

That’s how he learns they know each other in this one; Eggsy thinks he should agree to that – go home, see what his family looks like here – but he finds himself unable to do so. Like he would lose something very important then. 

Minutes pass but he remains silent, and Harry frowns, then places an arm around his shoulders and leads him somewhere. He says nothing, Eggsy doesn’t ask him to. It’s weird, even more than it seemed at first, but he can’t care less. 

After a quiet ride they end up in Harry’s house, warm and cozy. They barely say anything, partly because Eggsy feels sleepy the moment he steps inside and Harry insists on him drinking a cup of tea with mint and going to bed. 

Eggsy doesn’t dream in his sleep anymore, reality is enough for him, thank you, but this time it’s another way. He feels no control over this one, no usual confidence in what to expect. And what is the most unusual – he cannot predict Harry’s actions at all. 

He wakes up in the middle of the night. He looks out of the window; the street is familiar but not to the last bit, like it isn’t created from Eggsy’s memory or imagination. 

He doesn’t know why he’s doing it but he goes around the house to find Harry and finds him with a glass of wine in the living-room in front of a cold empty fire-place. 

“It doesn’t look much like my dream”, Eggsy says, “or whatever the fuck it is supposed to be”. 

“No, it doesn’t”, Harry agrees after a short pause. “Because it’s mine.” 

Eggsy doesn’t know how to react. It’s unusual, he hasn’t felt anything like this for very long, being confused, being surprised. It’s not exactly new but it’s almost completely forgotten. 

“I write books”, Harry tells him three days after. It’s very sudden, absolutely unexpected; they are just sharing a late-night dinner on a small balcony of his house. “Spy novels, Eggsy, can you imagine? A series about brave beautiful people that save the world for breakfast. They call themselves modern knights. Like in Arthurian times.” 

Eggsy’s heart skips a few beats. He shallows and asks quietly, “What is it called?” 

“ _Kingsman_. Our tailor-shop is their cover.” 

Eggsy doesn’t want to leave, he doesn’t at all. Something screams inside him at night and tells him he should stop it right now, that he mustn’t let himself drown in fake reality. He cries. He goes down to the London Underground several times, all at the different stations, and every time Harry is there to pull him from the platform’s edge, to take him away, to take him home where it’s safe and Eggsy honestly doesn’t want to know _how_. 

It happens suddenly and franticly and it’s perfect. He just looks at Harry’s face and that’s it. The understatement he was so afraid to notice. 

“Harry, Harry, you need to tell me right now”, he says quickly, reaching his hand somewhere and yet not daring to touch. “Your scar. The scar on your temple, where is it from?” 

Harry looks at him like he’s re-thinking his entire worldview. 

“That’s a long story”, he says carefully. “It happened far away, further than you may ever think, in another universe, if you please. It’s not fun being shot in the head, to be honest. Do you really need to know it?” 

That is when Eggsy breaks. “No, not anymore. I already do. It happened in Kentucky”, he whispers and then finally reaches and touches and cries in his arms clutching to the soft material of his sweater. “God, I’ve looked for you everywhere, you don’t even know… I watched you die, I saved that damned world we don’t even need anymore, I…” 

Harry pulls him closer and kisses him until his hysteria fades down completely and holds him with no intention of ever letting go. 

“I’ve looked for you, too. Don’t ever think I haven’t. I’m so sorry I haven’t found you sooner.” 

Everything makes sense again. This world is still not real but Harry definitely is, more alive and real than anything, and that’s more than enough. This is not the dream they originally lived in but it is good, too, with a nice tailor-shop and Harry’s spy novels, a tribute to real Kingsman. Well, not real maybe, but to the Kingsman they used to know. 

Harry tells him how many times he pulled the trigger and it scares Eggsy, it really does. Harry promises he will never do it again – not once he finally found him, even in his own dream. Eggsy believes him. He always has. 

It’s a lovely summer evening, warm and beautiful, and Eggsy looks lovelier than ever under the fading sunshine. 

“You don’t have to die to see the new worlds, right?” Harry says, holding both of his hands and slightly squeezing. “Sometimes, when you are waiting for a train… a train that will take you far away and it finally appears at the station… Then you know where you hope this train will take you, but you can never know for sure. And nobody can. The thing is that in fact it doesn’t even matter. Do you know why?” 

When they enter the train and take their sits by the window and Harry doesn’t drop his hand even for a moment, Eggsy knows exactly, _why_.


End file.
